Let's remove the time limit for unsifted videos and replace the time-based expiration with some number of unique views (40?). This would obviate Personal Queues and the Beggar's Canyon entirely (and so both 'features' would completely disappear). All submitted videos would reside in each user's "personal" queue until sifted or viewed by some number of registered users.

Naturally, this would require changing the number of queue slots for each user. Instead of allowing each user to always have 1, 3, or 6 (probies, standard, charter) videos in their own queue, the most logical restriction would be to limit the number of videos submitted over some time frame. For instance, we could allow charter members to submit 6 videos every 2 days, standard members to submit 3 every 2 days, and probies to submit 1 every other day.

It will also require a restructuring of the Unsifted pages. In addition to the obvious default sorting of "least viewed", each user would be allowed to select the maximum age of videos appearing in their particular view of the Unsifted tab. An obvious reasonable default would be 3 days. But importantly, the maximum age could be extended to quite a large number, theoretically to infinity. In other words, if I go away for a month, I might reasonably want to see every unsifted video submitted in the last 30 days, sorted by least views or most votes. (This will completely remove any time-of-submission bias, as well as maintaining easy viewing of whatever the "latest greatest" vid is.) Just as importantly, a user should be allowed to select as little as 1 day for their view of the Unsifted pages. This would allow them to see whatever is newest, without having to slog through 300 videos sorted by votes/view (who came up with that lame ass idea anyway! ;o )

I initially thought of this idea several months ago, but chucked it because it was so radical that I figured no one would accept it. Shortly after the crash, I thought to bring it up again in a sort of Naomi-Klein-Shock-Doctrine kind of way, but things were moving too fast. I offer it now for serious discussion, as a possible means of improving the quality of sifted videos, in particular of helping all those videos that "fall through the cracks". Who knows - it might even help reduce the number of dupes.

[edit] Actually, the primary goal of this is to improve the user experience. Any improved quality of sifts or reduction in dupes is lagniappe.